


To Live Without a Lifeline

by samiam711



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Past Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts, Tim Drake Angst, Tim Drake-centric, all friendships and characters other than tim are just mentioned, but more passive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:15:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27609565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samiam711/pseuds/samiam711
Summary: Tim is falling. He feels like he's already fallen a dozen times before. Maybe this time will be the last.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comments: 2
Kudos: 88





	To Live Without a Lifeline

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place during the Red Robin comics when Ra's al Ghul kicks Tim out of a window. It's probably an overused plotline but what the hell. I became inspired by some lines from Blade Runner (1982) and have included them in italics throughout the fic. The Tim written here may be a little sadder than in canon and a little less certain of himself. Eh, anyways hope you enjoy :)
> 
> Title is from the song "Earth" by Sleeping at Last

_If only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes._

Tim is falling. He feels like he's already fallen a dozen times before. Maybe this time will be the last. Death is something he should be used to at this point. And isn’t that a horrible thought... to think something so tragic, so traumatic could be so regular? Yet it happens every day. Why does it hurt so much? For, Tim Drake the question ends up being: what’s one more? Losing his best friends (Kon, Steph, Bart) somehow felt like losing a piece of himself. The death of Tim’s own father had already broken him even before that. The ‘end’ of Bruce Wayne, the Batman himself, was a permanent knife stuck in his side. Losing Robin… Dick was the one who made sure that he was ruined. The one person left who was supposed to believe in him, to help him, ~~to love him~~.

“This is all I have now,” Tim had said. It was a desperate claim. It didn’t matter. The image of Damian in his suit was burned into his mind. The heat clawed its way through his body until all that remained was a cold calculation, and, eventually, acceptance. When it came down to it, Tim knew he was always meant to be a stand-in.

_I want more life._

Steph wasn’t really dead. Leslie Thompkins helped her fake it. Tim doesn’t know how to feel when he sees her. He should be happy, ecstatic even. The betrayal runs too deep to allow any positive feelings through. Kon and Bart are back now too. Something to do with time travel, as it always seems to be. Tim should feel that at least some shards are back now, but the ones that were handed back to him feel wrong and cracked like misplaced puzzle pieces.

“I believe you,” was what Kon said when Tim told him about Bruce being alive. It felt good to have some vindication that wasn’t from an immortal assassin cult leader (Read: Ra’s al Ghul). It still didn’t matter, not in the end.

_The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very, very brightly._

Despite popular thought (Dick’s), Tim hadn’t thought over what his final moments would be like all that much. He’d known the consequences of vigilantism for his whole career as Robin. Death was a constant in a hero’s life. Tim himself was attempting to live up to death in a way. The second Robin has been an ominous cloud above his head every time Tim puts on the suit. It’s worse now that ~~batman is gone~~ he’s taken another one of Jason’s roles.

It’s unlike him to not think things through, especially something as crucial as this. He lets himself think that maybe he’s only ever been focused on what he needed to do as opposed to what he wanted. Tim’s never needed to die before. But... he’s tired. So goddamn, unbelievably exhausted. It’s easy to let his mind drift to the relief that is nothingness. He’d never die on purpose, no, he’d never take that step into his own hands.

Damian would want it, he knows. It would make him happy and safe, wouldn’t it? So it doesn’t matter if he’s being selfish. It doesn’t matter if his comm is likely fully functional or his grappling hook is within reach. He’ll let this play out. An experiment of sorts. Perhaps in another time, he would have wanted more life.

_It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?_

This is it. There’s nothing more that he can do. It’s over. He has saved the lives that he needed to and gotten the information about Bruce’s location. He knew the likelihood of his survival was very low. Beating Ra’s in battle was never his intention. Tim won either way. He likes to think that Bruce would be proud of him, even though Tim will never know for sure. Long gone by then, but that’s okay. Tim was the ~~hero~~ man he needed to be regardless of the lack of support he received. Now that he thinks about it, Tim hasn’t been truly alive in a long time anyway. After all, people only really die when they stop being loved.

_All those moments will be lost… in time._

He wonders if they will feel guilty, but then he thinks that that is improbable. Sure, he’ll be mourned, but they will get over it. He’s not Jason Todd.

An image comes to him, unbidden, of a cold, empty house where shadows prowled dark corridors and dust caressed the countertops. It won’t be so bad, he thinks as he remembers that he’s rather used to being forgotten.

_Like tears in rain._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! There is no character death in this fic as Dick Grayson swoops in to save him after this; however, I did imagine making this an AU where that doesn't happen... but I didn't so it's okay XD


End file.
